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Opinion: Editorials

From the Editorial Advisory Board: Boulder occupancy

Posted:
11/20/2015 07:50:50 PM MST

Updated:
11/21/2015 01:11:09 AM MST

This week's question: Boulder City Council, which already has different penalties for over-occupancy in different parts of the city, now wants to enforce those rules against the "Animal House Co-op," but not the "legitimate co-op." Please explain.

The high cost of housing in Boulder has encouraged a wide spectrum of alternative residential possibilities. They range from semi-legal co-housing arrangements like the well established Masala rental co-op, equity co-ops where residents buy into ownership and function like a community family, and Washington Village with condos and single-family units all with some degree of shared facilities.

The three exemplary Boulder Housing Coalition co-ops are rentals with income caps, common kitchens, a rich diversity of residents and very low car use, EcoPasses, car sharing, convenient bike parking, and an emphasis on organic food and recycling.

Boulder has about 133 Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs), another effort to increase affordable housing stock. Some complain that these violate the two-person limit.

I have high hopes that the new City Council will craft ordinances that legalize various kinds of co-ops, not just in three campus neighborhoods but city-wide. Each should have a bold reduced parking plan and strictly conform to present rental and owner-occupied dwelling regulations. A 30-day cure period should exist before a violation negates a permit.

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Let us get this right, learning from the Folsom Street debacle. Stakeholders, neighbors and city staff need to take time, learn from other cities, and let this effort give people of modest incomes affordable, quality living conditions. Lift some occupancy limits on a pilot basis.

If done properly, the charge that occupancy limits are in place to protect property values can be negated.

We have a problem with the occupancy limit ordinance. Councilman Andrew Shoemaker's comment regarding this topic illustrates the point. "Someone is stirring the pot. Someone called in a complaint against a co-op that we have discussed as a model of what we'd like to see more of. The complaint was anonymous. We don't know which side of the debate they're on."

Why isn't the City Council on the side of universal enforcement of the rules they promulgate? Why does the City Council believe an illegal co-op is a model? How is a co-op different from an over-occupied residence? Does proximity to council members' homes affect enforcement likelihood?

It is time to rethink the entire occupancy limit ordinance. Why shouldn't a five-bedroom home be allowed to have five people living in it? What difference does it make if people are related? Why can't people live co-operatively without the city getting involved in their private living arrangements?

Let's focus on behaviors. Garbage should be picked up. Noxious weeds should be removed. Noise should be kept down. Cars should be parked legally. We have laws that cover most of the behaviors that neighbors expect of each other. We could expand the enforcement of those laws. In the case of rentals, landlords should face shared fines with tenants who can't control themselves.

City Council should come up with an ordinance it is willing to enforce across the city. Nothing else will do.

Who knew that when Pete Townshend of The Who wrote "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss" that he was writing about Boulder politics? The occupancy ordinance is just the latest example of the insanity of Boulder's political class.

At a public hearing on Sept. 15, 97 percent of residents who spoke urged the council not to enact the proposed occupancy ordinance. At the end of the hearing, the "old boss," Mayor Appelbaum, politely thanked the crowd, remarked how "much younger" they were, effectively patted them on the head and closed the hearing. Sure enough, less than two months later the City Council, including the "new boss," Suzanne Jones, voted 9-0 to approve the new ordinance. The disconnect is striking. Ninety-seven percent of those impacted are not in favor of an ordinance and 100 percent of our City Council approves it.

Unlike other issues where their agenda is hidden, this time it is more visible. The primary intent of the ordinance is to prevent Uni Hill from becoming overrun with the unwashed masses. Why else would City Council approve an ordinance that makes it illegal for nine graduate students to live in a large seven-bedroom home near Chautauqua while keeping it legal for only a couple or small family to occupy the same house? Unfortunately for City Council, while trying to please their Uni Hill constituents they pissed off a second favored group — the "illegal-legitimate" co-ops that are now up in arms. For the rest of us, unfortunately, the madness simply continues.

All enforcement is selective. If not, we would all still be in jail. Imagine that for a minute. A 100,000-unit, minimum-security jail for all us occasional Boulder scofflaws. Well, that solves the transportation and housing problems. But new problems emerge. What to do with City Council? Would they all be stuck in the same corner, or would they be scattered amongst the jail population? Huh.

The occupancy problem resembles the homeless problem. Homelessness itself is not the problem, it is the public urination, drunkenness, assault, and such that cause the problem. Over-occupancy itself is not the problem. It is the parking, trash, noise, weeds, and mayhem that are the problems. A long walk around University Hill or Martin Acres reveals this. It is the cars parked on the lawn, the piles of empty liquor containers on the front porch. It is the unkempt landscape, the 1980s rock and roll at 4 a.m. and the kids passed out next to the cars parked on the lawn. But there are laws against most of these offenses. And at the problematic over-occupied dwellings, these problems all happen at the same time and at the same places.

So it is not a problem of selective enforcement. There should be selective enforcement. There is a problem of follow-through on chronic violators. The same people do the same things forever. So let the quiet, neat communes live. Bust Animal House and bust it hard and often.

The Boulder powers seem to clearly favor an avenue for legal co-ops. Less obvious is what exactly one of those nod-worthy "co-op" things is. Wait. But if we... Yep, that's where I start spinning in circles too.

Now to be fair, at last Tuesday's meeting, many council members had no qualms about their co-op identification abilities. Aaron Brockett claimed that a true co-op "will feel different." Andrew Shoemaker was confident he could pick out the "Animal House" imposters. The warning "don't touch co-ops — they are special" was uttered. City Attorney Tom Carr looked generally confused about what was being asked of him, which is fair — I certainly wouldn't want to be responsible for pulling the trigger on this one.

The promise of legal housing cooperatives is an extremely attractive addition to Boulder's affordability conversation. The dilemma that occurs to me (as one who never quite aced the kindergarten sharing lesson), however, is whether it is possible for us to distinguish between a designated "co-op" and any group of greater-than-three responsible adults who enjoy the cost savings and community of living together but want separate food — and no weekly meetings. Do we award points for (disclaimer: stereotypes follow) veganism, use of alternative transit and a below-average shoe consumption?

Honestly, should we even be seeking such a distinction? Perhaps not, but that would land us right back again in our Bermuda Triangle. Occupancy Debacle: square one.

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